A Sport Capital Model to Explain Life Quality in Taiwan´s Rural Communities

This study adopted residents´ perspective to develop a model explaining life quality with antecedents of residents´ economic, cultural capital, perceived community sport capital of green exercise, and healthy lifestyle in a Taiwan´s rural community. People who have high economic and cultural capital and perceive high sport capital of green exercise are likely to have more resources, knowledge, and interest to pursue healthy lifestyle and quality of life. Educational level was used as an index to measure a person´s cultural capital, whereas income was used as an index to measure a person´s economic capital. The construct of community sport capital of green exercise was identified with five dimensions (environmental consciousness, natural environments, sport facilities, sport organizations, and social support), each including 3 items. Four items were used to measure the healthy lifestyle, and six items were used to measure the quality of life. The reliabilities of the sport capital, healthy lifestyle, and life quality scales were between 0.85 and 0.91. Data (N=322) were collected from the Luo Tsuo community in central Taiwan by using questionnaires. The results showed that the influences of cultural capital were not significant. The influence of economic capital was not significant on healthy lifestyle, but was significant on life quality. Correlation and regression analyses showed that the healthy lifestyle partially mediated a relationship between perceived community sport capital and life quality. In short, the proposed model was partly supported in the Luo Tsuo community. Further studies are required to compare different communities. If the analysis units are different communities, cultural and economic capitals might have their impacts.